It's not me...it's my brain.

My name is Katie and I suffer from misophonia.
(cue dramatic music)

Stop panicking. It's not contagious. 

Misophonia, also known as selective sound sensitivity syndrome, is "the strong dislike or hatred of specific sounds."  In my case, specifically eating/food noises. Loud chewing, slurping (shudder), licking, gulping...you get the picture. 

What?

PureWow recently posted an article about it (included below), which made me research misophonia a bit more. According to WebMD, the reactions can vary from mild to severe...from anxiety and the urge to flee to rage or the desire to kill/stop whatever is making the noise. Fortunately I rate on the milder end of the spectrum, generally feeling a "fight or flight" response and, very rarely, anger. 

Misophonia is a lifelong condition more common in girls (generally starting between 9-13) and is a combination of mental and physical triggered responses to certain sounds.  Several studies have been done...one conducted by a British-based research team found that "As expected, persons with misophonia rated the trigger sounds of eating and breathing as highly disturbing while those without it did not" and that "persons with misophonia showed much greater physiological signs of stress (increased sweat and heart rate) to the trigger sounds of eating and breathing than those without it." 

"The team’s important finding was in a part of the brain that plays a role both in anger and in integrating outside inputs (such as sounds) with inputs from organs such as the heart and lungs: the anterior insular cortex (AIC). Using fMRI scans to measure brain activity, the researchers found that the AIC caused much more activity in other parts of the brain during the trigger sounds for those with misophonia than for the control group. Specifically, the parts of the brain responsible for long-term memories, fear, and other emotions were activated. This makes sense, since people with misophonia have strong emotional reactions to common sounds; more importantly, it demonstrates that these parts of the brain are the ones responsible for the experience of misophonia."

Noise sensitivity bothered me long before I could put a name to it...but now I can say "It's not me, it's my brain!" 😀

The nice thing for me in reading about all this was that I'm managing it in ways they suggest - creating distracting sounds or wearing headphones. Fortunately it doesn't take too much to be distracting. If I'm in a restaurant, there's usually enough background/white noise to drown out upsetting food noises...soup would be the one exception. At home, playing music on my phone (not via earbuds...just having music in the background) is generally sufficient. And depending on the situation, I just leave a room for a short period of time and wander back in after nuts are no longer being crunched by someone chewing with their mouth open... 

Anywho...next time you're enjoying soup or chewing bubblegum, remember where might be someone nearby, silently plotting your demise. 😈

Hate the Sound of Chewing? There’s a Medical Diagnosis for That

By

KATHERINE GILLEN 

| DEC. 5, 2018

BONEROK/GETTY IMAGES

We’ve yet to meet a person who likes hearing people chew loudly. But for some people, even the smallest noises—like breathing, throat clearing and swallowing—can be anxiety- and anger-inducing. It turns out, there’s a medical diagnosis for that, and it’s called misophonia.

What is misophonia? People with misophonia (which literally means “hatred of sound”) are affected negatively by small, everyday noises—usually ones that don’t bother most people (like chewing, yawning, breathing or throat clearing). The disorder was first recognized in 2001, so it’s still fairly new. According to James Cartreine, Ph.D, doctors don’t know too much about how common it is, but found that it often starts during adolescence.

What are the typical symptoms? Misophonia essentially triggers a fight-or-flight response: What starts as a distracting noise becomes the cause of full-blown outrage and anxiety, to the point where the person feels like they need to remove themselves from the source of the noise itself. And it’s typically a sound that might be considered, at most, gross or annoying by everyone else. (Think: Someone chewing loudly at the dinner table.) The sounds can be so disturbing that they interfere with everyday life.

What causes it? Doctors aren’t sure, but promising research from Newcastle University Medical School suggests that misophonia might be caused by brain structure. Using brain scans, the researchers found that in people with misophonia, there was “heightened activity in the anterior insular cortex (AIC), an area known to play a central role in the system that determines which things we should pay attention to.” Read: Their brains were wired to a) focus on sounds most people don’t pay attention to at all, and b) have a heightened emotional response to those sounds.

Is it treatable? While there are no cures for misophonia, the Misophonia Association reports many treatments that can manage symptoms. Cognitive behavioral therapy, frequent exercise, hypnosis and auditory distraction (like white noise or headphones) have been shown to help, but it really depends on the individual.

What’s the most common misconception about misophonia? Because triggering sounds can be so commonplace, it’s easy to dismiss the disorder as a sensitivity to bad manners. But people with misophonia can’t just “ignore it,” as many assume. According to Dr. Aage Moller, a neuroscientist, it’s more like being right- or left-handed than a voluntary reaction to your coworker’s gum-snapping on any given day. 

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Since it is unlikely that I'll post again before Tuesday, I hope everyone has a blessed and very merry Christmas!



~ Katie Q.